In taking on one of horror’s most fearsome villains, Heather Langenkamp launched her acting career as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street way back in 1985. Managing to hold her own against Freddy Krueger – a nightmare of a movie villain that still keeps people up at night – in not just one but two whole movies sealed Langenkamp’s reputation as a woman who can seriously hold her own. In the decades since, she had fought her fair share of battles and dipped in and out of the horror genre as her career has taken her from strength to strength.

After an impressive run in television and cameo roles in fun movies like Star Trek Into Darkness, Langenkamp is finally returning to Freddy’s world in an all new fan-made short film called Don’t Fall Asleep. Though she doesn’t appear physically in the short, Langenkamp provides a voice over narration, reprising her role of Nancy and telling of the story of the year between Nancy’s two Elm Street appearances in the first and third movies in the franchise.

While Langenkamp narrates, Diandra Lazor recreates the young Nancy character as she comes to terms with the horror she faced in the first movie and learns the difficult lessons she needs to learn in order to fulfill her destiny as the Dream Warrior of the third. It shows Nancy dealing with the deaths of her closest friends and her mother and the way she handles her relationship with her father crumbling away.

Dedicated simply to “Wes” (whoever that might be…), the short is a labour of love on the part of everyone involved and even the use of the Comic Sans on its poster doesn’t stop it being a pretty great tribute to the survivors of the knife-fingered, scorched-faced child killer.

And perhaps the best thing about it is that it is completely free to view, in its forty-five minute entirety, on YouTube.